August 21, 2007
Employees lose $6 billion a year to work
(BOSTON) Workers lose billions of dollars a year in lost recreation time to their employers, according to a new study from Reinhart Analysts, published Tuesday.
The Workforce analytic company looked at the phenomenon of working from home, and found employers cost their employees up to US$6 billion.
“People think about work a lot on their off time. And not only think, but make decisions, hatch ideas, scribble notes,” Reinhart chairman Cindy Alpenson told SuBBrilliant News.
“And with the advent of the Internet, now they check email during off time, visit work websites, and Intranet sites and more.”
The Internet has allowed employers to expect responses from email and action on work projects more and more during off-time
Alpenson said her findings were based on a typical worker, earning average holiday time, working a 40-hour week. She then calculated the cost to workers if they spent an hour each day on work instead of relaxing. Work they don’t get paid for
“We got the extraordinary figure of US$6 billion in lost recreational time and work done essentially for free,” she said.
Alpenson said banning work from off-time was not necessarily the best way to combat recreation wasting.
“Employees can balance things out by surfing the Web at work. Watching videos on YouTube, socializing on IM and Facebook,” she said. “If allowed, this actually spreads the work out and makes the worker more productive, and allows ideas to come at more opportune times, rather than being forced into an 8-hour day.”